Pacific Rim 2 may be stalled, but here's a look at del Toro’s prequel comic

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Though he hasn’t given up on the project, odds are getting longer and longer that Guillermo del Toro will actually get to make Pacific Rim 2. But that doesn’t mean the universe is dying anytime soon.

Along with the main film, del Toro always envisioned a larger world for Pacific Rim, with an animated series and tie-in comic books (not to mention the stalled sequel) put into development shortly after the first movie. The fruit of that connective tissue is set to debut soon, in the form of Legendary Comics’ Pacific Rim: Tales From The Drift.

Writer Travis Beacham, who penned the film’s script as well as the new comic, opened up to Newsarama about the concept and how this side story came to be. Turns out, the characters and arc were actually a factor in early versions of the film script, but were eventually cut at different phases of development. So, when the idea for the comic came together, Beacham said he was fascinated to finally tell this tale:

“When we were planning the movie, we had imagined a lot of backstory anyway. The movie begins in earnest at a very late point in the whole Kaiju conflict story. So there's always been this sort of sweeping backstory that wasn't really delved into in the movie. And the story of these two pilots, Duc and Kaori, has always been a story that I've been interested in telling.

Initially, they were actually part of the first draft of the movie, but as the movie evolved and we tried to tell the best story we could, things changed. But they've always been very interesting characters to me. And their Jaeger in particular looks so much different from the other Jaegers — very lean and very fast-looking. So they're an interesting pair, and then their Jaeger is very interesting to look at. So it's been on my radar for those reasons for a little while."

The first issue of Tales from The Drift is set to debut Nov. 4.

Check out a few pieces of preview art below and let us know what you think: